It’s a rare example of English being simpler than other languages, so I’m curious if it’s hard for a new speaker to keep the nouns straight without the extra clues.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
    link
    fedilink
    English
    35 hours ago

    About as confusing as some people being nongendered. You get used to it pretty quickly, and it becomes a non-issue.

  • @Shardikprime
    link
    414 hours ago

    Not confusing at all, Spanish and English are very flexible languages

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    314 hours ago

    Not at all, we don’t do gendered words. The fact that pronouns are gendered still baffles me.

  • @umbraroze
    link
    1019 hours ago

    I’m a Finnish speaker. Nouns aren’t gendered in Finnish either, so that’s not weird.

    Things that do trip me up:

    • Pronouns (lack of T/V distinction (i.e. just one “you”) and gendered third person)
    • Articles (Finnish doesn’t have articles as such, so adding them sometimes takes some brainpower)
    • so freaking many irregular verbs etc
    • seriously what is this orthography even (Finnish grammar may be complex, but the same can’t be said of the pronunciation)

    Actually, I’m learning French right now and gendered nouns aren’t even that much of a problem. I was dreading the numerals more.

    • @Taniwha420
      link
      314 hours ago

      We actually do have a second person singular, “thou.” We just transitioned out of using it because ‘politeness’. Thou could useth the second person singular, but thou would soundeth quite archaic. (Think I conjugated that correctly.) You can still see it used in some religious texts in reference to God.

      • @ZombiepirateOP
        link
        English
        4
        edit-2
        6 hours ago

        I believe it’d be thou wouldst sound archaic or thou soundest [most] archaic, in early modern English depending on the tense, but that’s a great point.

        • @Taniwha420
          link
          25 hours ago

          I think you’re right. I didn’t think the “helper words” in the conditional should get conjugated, but I grabbed a Book of Common Prayer off the shelf and there’s a bunch of “thou shalt” + infinitive, so evidently the conditional does get conjugated (in addition to “thou didst” and “thou hast”.) Pretty sure I noticed some 2nd person weak verbs that looked like they had the same conjugation as the 3rd person (eg “Remember thou keep holy …”) I did note “he cometh”, so maybe that -eth ending is actually an older conjugation for the 3rd person that later morphed into an -s ending? Just noticed “he saith (says)”, and the confirmed -eth ending on a bunch of 3rd person congregations. Interestingly, I found a LOT of “thou shalt”, some “thou wilt”, but no “thou couldst” or “thou wouldst”. Probably because the BCP is all like, “you WILL, this is not an option, sinner.”

          I don’t know though! I’m a typical English first language speaker and I’m just going with what feels right and using my understanding of grammar from my French education.

          • @ZombiepirateOP
            link
            English
            1
            edit-2
            4 hours ago

            It does get confusing! I’m kind of a Shakespeare nerd, and the cult I was in till I was a young adult was big on the King James Version of the bible, so I guess I’ve just had a lot of exposure. I don’t really know the rules.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    721 hours ago

    There used to be Doctor/Doctrix, actor/actress, etc but it has gone by the by in the last few decades. There’s still dog/bitch, ram/ewe, cow/bull etc.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      721 hours ago

      I still use actress, does that make me sound weird? Same for masseuse/masseur, waiter/waitress, hostess/steward (on a plane) and I can’t think of anything else right now.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        114 hours ago

        I didn’t even know masseuse was gendered, I’ve never heard anyone use masseur in the US.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        3
        edit-2
        16 hours ago

        Not a single word on that list would even ping on my radar if you said it near me, except for “Masseur.” If you said “Masseur” near me, I would think “oh, fancy.” -Native English speaker from SE USA

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        120 hours ago

        Weird? Certainly not. To me it makes very little difference - although I understand the idea behind eliminating the male/female dichotomy. Stick with whatever you’re used to. As long as I understand what you say I don’t lose sleep over the words used. One more for the list: prostitute / gigalo.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    823 hours ago

    Swedish has genders, but not male/female but utrum/neutrum.

    These are not really rule bound, and has to be learned word by word.

    Some words are even double gendered but means different things depending on what gender is used.

    Example

    “En borr” / “borren” = a drill / the drill

    “Ett borr” / “borret” = a drill bit / the drill bit.

    But to answer your question, English is in many ways simpler than Swedish, you can specify any article by just putting “the” in front of it. In Swedish you need to select the proper -en/-et suffix with no real hard snd fast rule.

    Where english is annoying is compound words.

    “Realisationsvinstbeskattning” is the longest word in the Swedish dictionary, it is made up of three separate words,

    Realisation - Sale

    Vinst - Revenue

    Beskattning - taxation

    So the word simply means taxation on sale revenue.

    According to Guinness book of world records the longest Swedish from 2006 the longest Swedish word is:

    nordvästersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten

    But that is just ridiculous and looks like it comes from a report for the military where someone made the word because they could and enjoyed languages.

    Lets break it down into individual words

    nord-väster-sjö-kust-artilleri-flyg-spanings-simulator-anläggnings-materiel-underhålls-uppföljnings-system-diskussions-inläggs-förberedelse-arbeten

    I am on mobile and the word would take too long to translate here, but it means

    “Preparatory groundwork for the discussion on maintenance systems for materials used in the coastal artillery’s flight reconnaissance simulator covering the north western costal sector.”

    The issue with English for a Swedish speaker is the lack of compound words, making Swedes used to separating compound words when writing. Which can have fun results:

    Herrskjorta = mens button down shirts

    Herr skjorta = Mr. Skjorta

    Kassapersonal = Cashier

    Kassa personal = terrible staff members

    • @lookmomnodrugs
      link
      38 hours ago

      I am learning a lot here. I am also Swedish lol. I was however great with the English classes, easily top 3 (okay honestly though I am being humble, I was really dominating those classes up until high school, so hard I dont even remember anyone even being in second or third place)

      It sounds obnoxius but its true, if you also had a negative reaction to my story like myself, please find relief in that it was my peak and that I am single since years with heavy substance abuse going on the daily - also let me delete this in a bit okay bye lol

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    521 hours ago

    For the most part I don’t think about it at all. I guess you only consider things when they cause extra effort, in this case it mostly doesn’t so it’s very unconscious. That said, I generally use the few gendered ones I know (I listed in another comment) because it is the way my native language works.

    By the way, from grammar perspective English is a very simple language. Compared to similar languages (French, Italian etc.), for example, verbs are much simpler too. The harder part of English I think has to do with pronounce.

  • tiredofsametab
    link
    fedilink
    522 hours ago

    Not all other languages have gendered nouns. Articles and affixes are usual points of pain I see (as someone who grew up in a monolingual English-speaking household), and of course the whole orthography mess with spelling is terrible (how can ough have like 6 or 8 pronounciations?!). If you want fun, some languages have distinctions between inanimate and animate things as well as cases that don’t exist in English as well if you want to look in fun other features.

    Edit: I meant to say prepositions. Affixes is often more in the other direction

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
    link
    fedilink
    English
    81 day ago

    Technically English is my third languge, but also simultaneously my most fluent.

    In short, not confusing at all. Because in Chinese (any variation of Chinese) nouns are also not gendered.

    Pronouns in Chinese are also not gendered

    He = 他 (tā)

    She = 他 (tā)

    No confusion with pronouns either. My parents constantly say he when refering to a woman, or she when refering to a man, or mix them up while talking about the same person in the same conversation. No me tho, I never get confused. I learned English at like grade 2-3.

    • @Tkpro
      link
      11 day ago

      What? She in Chinese is 她. It might not be used often but it definitely is gendered…

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
        link
        fedilink
        English
        5
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        Nope. 她 isn’t really used. 他 is the pronoun, even if its refering to women.

        Like if you wrote 他 to refer to a woman in an essay on a test, it’d get marked as correct.

        Edit: Although, on the internet, people commonly type “TA” instead of “他”.

        Edit 2: So clarification

        他 refers to both men and women

        她 can only be used to refer to women, and this is rarely used, except maybe in english class to teach about the english pronouns

        它 refers to non humans, like animals or objects

        all 3 are pronounce the same exact way (tā)

        • HatchetHaro
          link
          fedilink
          022 hours ago

          hmm, idk man, over here 他 is only for men, and 她 is only for women.

          though in speaking we just use 佢 because canto

  • @frankenswine
    link
    1352 days ago

    not at all. it simplifies the learning experience by quite a bunch.

    one of the more confusing is learning other gendered languages where the gender of some object is different to the one in your mother tongue

    • Canadian_Cabinet
      link
      fedilink
      382 days ago

      To make matters worse, some languages have the exact same word but with a different gender. Heat in Spanish is el calor but in Catalán is la calor

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        482 days ago

        To make matters even worse, in some languages the exact same word with different gender has different meaning.

        In German:
        “der Band”, male, = a (book) volume
        “das Band”, neutral, = ribbon
        “die Band”, female = (music) band

        Bonus: “die Bande” can be a gang, a sports barrier, and (relationship) ties.

    • @ZombiepirateOP
      link
      English
      142 days ago

      one of the more confusing is learning other gendered languages where the gender of some object is different to the one in your mother tongue

      That’s something I hadn’t really considered. Interesting!

    • thisisbutaname
      link
      fedilink
      122 days ago

      Yeah I basically never thought about the gender of English nouns because there’s very few reasons to

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        215 hours ago

        Because recognising when to use “a”, “the”, or 0 article is tricky.

        A/an is usually fine. 0 article and the are tricky, and then getting it right on the fly is hard.

        We take it all for granted and get it, but they’re hard for people who don’t have an equivalent in their first language.

      • @BrianTheeBiscuiteer
        link
        81 day ago

        As the speaker of an English language me can tell you is not a difficult.

      • @JeremyHuntQW12
        link
        21 day ago

        …because its the articles which are not gendered, not the nouns.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    362 days ago

    no, we just learn that “der”, “die”, “das”, “den”, “dem” all translate to “the”

  • YTG123
    link
    fedilink
    121 day ago

    It’s not confusing at all, except in the very specific case of nouns referring to people or animals that don’t have gendered variants.

    For example, in my language, the word corresponding to “(a) sheep” has a masculine and feminine form, with the feminine used neutrally. Consequently, when seeing “sheep” in English, I assume the feminine and seeing it used with “he” is a bit of cognitive dissonance.

    Similarly, most words for human professions are by default masculine.

    • Mad_Punda
      link
      fedilink
      41 day ago

      I remember reading a story written in English, and it kept mentioning „the cook“ (no pronoun, no name). My gender biased brain assumed the cook must be male. So I got confused when the pronoun „she“ finally appeared. I had to reread the paragraph to understand what was going on.
      Embarrassing and eye opening.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      31 day ago

      Ive spent some times on farms and haven’t ever herd/used he for a singular male sheep before.

      If its a singular male I would say the ram.

      But its just normally sheep, generally female. If you want to be specific its weathers, ewes, lambs or rams.